


broken ribs pierced our lungs

by caelescherries



Category: South Park
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:41:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23061136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caelescherries/pseuds/caelescherries
Summary: basically, a story where you can see exactly when you're going to die. from the beginning, craig had been eerily aware of the short amount of time that he had left in the world and found it to be bullshit. this is his last week in this hellish world.
Relationships: Craig Tucker/Tweek Tweak, Kenny McCormick/Craig Tucker
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ddndex](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Ddndex).



> sorry lmao im working on this as i can and as a senior in high school i honestly dont have much free time lmao. enjoy my sporadic updates.

word count: 1,165

prologue: ability unlocked: existential crisis.

Craig Tucker had decided from a young age that the world in which he lived was hellish. No matter what he was told, he knew that this world wasn’t normal. He knew for a fact that you shouldn’t be able to see how many days you had left to live. Harry Potter didn’t have this ticking time bomb in his peripheral vision, counting off the days until he bit the dust. Romeo and Juliet surely weren’t aware that they’d die only days after they’d met the love of their lives. Despite this, the world around him was constantly reassuring him that it was normal. Everyone insisted that he would get used to it.

He never got used to it. That may have been due to the fact that at the age of ten years old, he’d deduced that he would die when he was exactly seventeen years and two hundred days old. August 12th. He was going to die on August 12th. At the time, he hadn’t really cared. He was a carefree ten year old, doing carefree ten year old things. Playing soccer in the middle of the streets with his friends after school, and then spending all weekend on video games or DND campaigns. He was constantly aware, but it wasn’t important. Over two thousand and five hundred days seemed as though they’d never ever come. Besides, no one else was concerned, so why should he voice his feelings on an unstoppable thing?

The first time that reality came and smacked him in the nuts was when he was twelve. Tweek Tweak, his boyfriend at the time, suddenly up and died. He hadn’t said anything. Nothing at all. Craig would have liked to say that there were no signs that it was coming, but there was. Tweek had always been an awkward, jittery individual. However, about a week before he’d, well, ya know, he’d suddenly had much more of a “no fucks given” attitude. He’d stopped drinking the coffee that he was addicted to. He finally found the balls to audition for the schools musical, something that he’d told Craig he’d wanted to do since like fourth grade. He tried sushi, which was something he’d never eaten because he was decently sure he’d get food poisoning. He tried it, and he damn liked it. The day before, he begged Craig and their little posse of friends to just hang out. All day. It’d taken some begging and pleading, but after a while, they’d relented. It’d been a while since they’d hung out anyways, so it was a perfect time. They had pretty much the best day ever, going to every kids dream place- Elitches- and being, well, kids. They’d wanted to sleep over, but Tweek had been pretty adamant about that not happening. Craig had departed with a final kiss, a final “i love you”, then left.

The next morning when Craig knocked on the Tweaks’ door to walk Tweek to school, he realized why the previous day had been so thrilling. Why Tweek had been so un-Tweek like. 

The world was cruel. It was more than fucked up that you couldn’t even tell people when you were supposed to die He didn’t know how that whole thing worked- honestly, he didn’t think that anyone did. It was like some stupid plot hole that whatever dumbass creator of the world couldn’t come up with an excuse for. Like giraffes. What the fuck are those weird bastards supposed to be, with their weird ass blue tongues. Anyways, at the age of twelve, Craig realized how serious this whole shitty situation was.

It pissed him off. How come he had to die young? His parents were way older than he was, and from what he could tell, they still had plenty of time left on their life countdowns. They had yet to do anything drastic, like plan some sudden vacation or something. How come he’d drawn the short straw in the game of life? It sucked ass. It was stupid. It wouldn’t have been nearly as bad had he not known that he was going to die before he could legally drink alcohol- not to worry, that most certainly didn’t stop him from doing so. But he did, which meant everything sucked. He was mad all the time, and he was pretty sure that people figured he was due to die any time and that the funk he was in was all because of that.

This whole pissed at the world thing lasted a good three years until one Kenny McCormick waltzed into his life. Well, Kenny had always been in his life. They’d known each other since preschool. They’d been acquainted since third or fourth grade, but they didn’t become friends until freshman year. Freshman year, Kenny had done literally everything in his power to push past Craig's walls, and after much persistence, Craig allowed it. It wasn't fun blocking everyone out, but no one ever tried to get back in. No one besides Kenny. 

Before he knew it, they were hanging out every day. Texting until they had to get up for school. Sneaking out of their houses at night and meeting at Starks Pond; Kenny had taught Craig how to skip rocks during the summer, and in return once it got cold and the pond froze over, Craig had taught Kenny how to ice skate. The closer they got, Craig began to recognize the feeling he got whenever he was with Kenny. It was all too familiar. Similar to what he felt when he'd been with Tweek. At first, he'd freaked out and tried once again to push Kenny away. He didn't want to be in a relationship when he died and he damn well didn't want to break up right before he died. No matter how hard he tried, how mad he got, Kenny was always right there to calm him down. To reassure him that he was okay with this relationship. He didn't know when Craig was going to die, but he damn well promised to be there no matter what.

This in mind, Craig allowed himself to fall for Kenny. This was around the beginning of sophomore year that he'd finally relented. Sophomore and junior years went by in a flash, and he was damn sure to make pretty much every minute of it last. It was the second semester of senior year when things began to change. Craig turned seventeen years old and began counting down the days. Two hundred. One hundred and ninety nine. It was excruciating, and he couldn't even tell the one person he cared most about in his life. Kenny was just absolutely oblivious, and Craig wanted to he mad but he couldn't. How was Kenny supposed to know? It was shit. Life was shit. One week until he was destined to die was when he realized that the world in which he lived was actually way more hellish than he had originally realized.


	2. let's disappoint each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is completely dedicated to user ddndex bc i completely fucking forgot about this thing and i just read theit comment and was like oh shit. anyways i hope to continue this now that school's cancelled lmao love yall <3

wc: 3,570 

Craig and Kenny had never had what people would call normal dates. They wouldn’t go out for dinner, and it was rare that they would do something like stargaze. Something that they had both discovered a love for was leaving the small town of South Park in the ungodly hours of the morning and see if they could find any stores in neighboring towns that were open 24/7.So far they’d come across a target, a wal-mart, some small town coffee shop, and a frozen yogurt place. It was a shame that they would have to call a quits on their adventuring. Maybe Kenny would look without him. He sort of wanted him to- he didn’t want their charades to have to come to an end, even if he wasn’t there. 

Usually Kenny initiated the adventures, considering he’d bought himself a really rundown old truck, whilst the only car that Craig drove was his fathers. However, Craig was decently sure that Kenny had no intentions of going out that night, so he was going to have to walk down to Kenny’s in the dark. He’d been watching the time, since it wasn’t the same if they left at like 11. It had to be at least 2:30 am or they may as well not go. Craig rarely slept anyways and Kenny never seemed to be tired if he didn’t get enough sleep at night, so it seemed perfect. At exactly 2:15, Craig stood up from his bed. He was already wearing his sleep pants and some Panic! At The Disco shirt that he’d stolen from Kenny a while back. Well, Kenny had actually bought it for him- he bought it in XL because he didn’t really know what size he was so he got a huge one so it’d be baggy no matter what- but he hadn’t given it to him yet, so it was stolen. He considered changing into real clothes, but then he realized that anyone in Target at 3am had no room to judge what he was wearing.

He pulled on some new converse- he had insisted that he didn’t need any, but Clyde had insisted. He tied them, then pulled on a jacket. He added his hat on as a finishing touch. His mirror shone in the moonlight, but Craig didn’t bother looking at it. He looked towards his bedroom door, but decided instead to climb out the window, as to not wake anyone up. He carefully maneuvered his way into an appropriate position to just drop to the ground. Usually living on the second floor was pretty good, but at times like this it was not exactly the best.

Walking around South Park after dark was never a particularly good idea, especially once you got to the wrong side of the tracks, but Craig wasn’t scared. He had seven days until his death, and it was unlikely that he would end up in the hospital during them. Maybe he would. He didn’t really care, honestly. He stepped over the railroad tracks carefully, then quickened his pace. Suddenly, the fact that he would only cross those tracks a few more times came across his mind. He swallowed harshly, closing his eyes for a moment. He wasn’t typically a cry-y type of person, but he was finding this increasingly harder to do as time was passing. He originally thought it was really fucked up, but he didn’t think it’d be a big deal. He’d just die once it was time. Unsurprisingly, that was a lot harder than he figured it would be.

Luckily, before he could really grow anymore overwhelmed by his thoughts, his boyfriend's house came into view. He thanked whatever God there was for distracting him, though cursed them at the same time because they were the reason he was thinking the thoughts. He jogged the rest of the way to the house, then quietly made his way to the third window on the right side of the house, the one he knew to be Kenny’s. First window was the living room, second was the bathroom, third was Kenny. He’d gotten the hang of the houses lay out in only a few days of him regularly visiting. The blonde really didn’t like for Craig to go in through the front door because there was always an unnecessary kerfuffle with his parents. The window was a much easier route, especially since Kenny’s house was only one floor. He slid the window open slowly and slipped inside, plopping down onto the mattress which was directly underneath it.

He sat down, admiring his sleeping lover for just a moment. Kenny was absolutely gorgeous. The way his blonde hair fell across his face when he slept. His perfect button nose, his eyebrows, which were perfectly arched and not bushy without him actually having to tame them. His chest, which was covered in scratches and cuts, which Craig never really understood. Kenny had tried to explain them by saying that he was just super clumsy, and Craig had simply come to accept it. He couldn’t describe the feelings he felt for Kenny. It wasn’t love. It was the feeling when you go to the beach for the first time and your toes sink right into the sand and you can’t help but giggle. When you smell a vanilla scented candle. When it’s getting dark and you can see the stars just starting to appear. Like cozy sweaters and warm socks. That’s exactly what he felt when he saw Kenny. Call it love if you will, but Craig was pretty sure it was more than the word love would ever be able to convey. 

He would love to just sit and stare at the love of his life for as long as he possibly could, but he didn’t have time for any of that gay shit. With much reluctance, he reached over and gently shook Kenny’s arm, smiling faintly. He didn’t really use to be much of a smiler, and he still wasn’t unless Kenny was around. There was something about the blonde that made it impossible to not smile, no matter how sad or angry he was with the world.

“Hey, babe, wake up,” he whispered, making the gentle shaking a bit more aggressive. “Wake upppp, we’re gonna go on an adventure. Well, me and your car are, at least, so feel free to join us if you want,” he said in a more normal tone. He honestly hadn’t thought that the blonde was awake, but a loud groan and Kenny slowly sitting up. Craig grinned. Kenny was adorable when he was just waking up.

“Fuck, dude, it’s late-” he cut himself off “early as fuck” he corrected. Craig always corrected him when he said it was late, so he’d grown prone to realizing when he was wrong. Craig was way too technical of a person. “I wanna go back to beddddd. Come lay down with me. We’ll go on an adventure tomorrow night. Besides, you don’t even know where my car keys are,” he stated matter-of-factly. With this all being said, he laid back down with a triumphant smile on his face.

That was something Kenny had wrong. See, Kenny always put everything in the same spot. Shirts were always messily hung up on the far right side of his closet. Shoes always went on the far left side. Pants were always thrown on the ground right in the middle of the closet. Cigarettes were always in the right pocket of his parka, and car keys were always on the left inside pocket. Craig was pretty sure he’d like- programmed Kenny to organize his things in such a way, but he wasn’t complaining. It sure made his life a whole lot easier. He got off of the bed and retrieved the keys, dangling above the blondes head teasingly. 

“Me and Gertie are leaving,” Gertie was the absolutely dreadful name that Kenny had chosen for his mahogany pickup truck. Craig hated it and he never would not hate it, he was sure, but Kenny always seemed to think it was pretty funny. Craig heard a groan and knew that he’d won this round, so he placed himself on the bed to wait for Kenny to get dressed. Kenny hated when Craig drove, for the simple fact that he was absolutely terrible at it. He’d crashed his dad’s car at least four times, and there was no way in hell he was going to let his boyfriend crash Gertie, no matter how much he loved him.

A montage of getting ready and an hour or so of driving and singing Mccafferty at the top of their lungs later, the two teenagers had ended up at their favourite 24 hour store that they’d found so far. Target. Kenny had wanted to find somewhere new, but Craig had insisted on Target, so they’d compromised and went to Target. Craig was good at getting his way. They wandered in to the store and hesitated on the inside. Caig fished out his wallet- he always kept it in his jacket pocket- and handed Kenny a twenty. 

“Okay, go find something that makes you think of me. I’ll do it too,” he proposed. He’d seen it on instagram, posted by his bitchy cousin Red, and found it to be the single most stupid thing he’d ever seen in his life. However, it did seem kind of nice, and he hoped that whatever he picked out would be important for Kenny in a week. 

Apparently, Kenny also found the idea to be fucking stupid. He snorted, looking from the bill to his boyfriend skeptically. “Really? That’s why you woke me up at three in the morning when we have a calculus test tomorrow? A stupid date idea that’s been on every teenage girls social media since like- 2013? God you’re a fucking loser,” he scoffed. He had figured that Craig needed something that target could provide, not some scenecore shit from back in the good ol’ 2012 emo tumblr days. Although at first he’d been skeptical, as he’d let Craig know, there was something about the noirette’s expression that made him a bit more willing.

“Don’t be a dick. I think it’s a good idea” He claimed, despite having definitely been talking shit about it only a few days before. It seemed pointless then, but maybe he had been too quick to judge. Besides, he actually did have other things that he wanted to grab while they were there, and he knew that if Kenny were there while he was grabbing them, he would get an ear full as to how he was basically some cringey blonde from early facebook days.

After a few minutes of contemplation, Kenny groaned, but took the money with a reluctant nod. “Fine, let’s do it. Do I have a time limit or do we just have to be back in enough time to get back home before the sun goes up?” He asked, glancing around him for potential present ideas. Twenty bucks was a shit limit for a Target, so he considered himself luckily for typically having his wallet in his pyjama pants for these nighttime adventures. 

“Fuck getting home before sunrise. Take your time. Call me when you’re done and we’ll meet in your car.” Craig responded. This received a curious eyebrow raise from the blonde, considering Craig was usually really adamant about being home on time, but he wasn’t complaining. Perhaps he was finally influencing Craig in a way that would benefit him.

“Right, good deal. See you in a bit then,” He kissed Craig on the cheek, then turned off and turned precisely where Craig had expected he would; the stuffed animals. Not that he would ever in a million years admit it, but the dark haired boy had a thing for small plushies. His mind wandered for a moment, wondering what the blonde was looking for before he returned to reality. No time for that. First, he headed towards the electronic aisle. He wanted a camera. Not any type of camera, a cool polaroid one. He’d been saving up for one for a while, but it took a bit longer than anticipated and now he only had a week until he died to go through with one.

He wanted to make a scrapbook. It was totally and completely gay, but he thought it would be good. He would collect as many pictures of him, his friends, and his boyfriend as he could in the next week, then leave it for whoever wanted it. The concept, though admittedly adorable, did really make him want to cry. Pushing the reality of why he wanted one away, he went up to the nearest clerk and asked them for assistance. He didn’t go through the bullshit of choosing whichever one was prettiest or whatever, he just wanted it to be efficient.

Finding that, the proper scrapbooking materials, and actually buying them took about an hour, but there was no sign of Kenny calling him yet, so he wasn’t too worried. Four twenty three a.m., and he was only just beginning to look for a gift for Kenny. He honestly had no idea what he was going to get. Kenny made him feel so many different things, that it was really hard to pinpoint one single thing that he wanted to get. So, he didn’t. He bought an assortment of small things that all had to do with the color orange.

The idea started with this small goldfish plush. It was possibly the cutest thing he had ever seen in his entire life, and it really screamed Kenny. However, this didn’t feel like it was enough. Next, he saw a little orange plush. Next were these circle sunglasses with orange lenses. He went on like this, finding small and cheap orange things- this ranged from little gadgets and toys that reminded him of inside jokes, to candies that he knew that Kenny liked, all the way until he heard a ringing in his pocket. It was probably a good thing that he stopped, because he was certainly over the price limit, he just hadn’t been thinking. He picked up the phone and rolled his eyes. Kenny never called like a normal person, it always had to be a facetime. 

“What?” The noirette asked with a blank expression, though the adorable face that Kenny was making did soften the expression, almost to the point that he was smiling. The blonde had that effect on everyone, but mostly Craig.

“You done yet? I am. Bout to check out, come on,” The blonde said, not seeming to care about how rudely Craig had answered the phone. He’d used to be annoyed and tell Craig to answer his phone like a normal boyfriend, but after realizing that this wasn't gonna happen, he got over it.  
“Ight. See you in two. Love you,” He puckered his lips slightly, as if to kiss the camera, then hung up. The last thing he needed was a little gift back to stuff all this shit in. He grabbed one- obviously orange- then as a side thought grabbed some of that tissue stuffing shit and finally headed towards the check out. Sure enough, Kenny was waiting there for him, holding a basket behind him to hide the contents. Craig followed suit as he approached, giving a dorky grin. “You went over the price limit, didn’t you?” He asked in a disapproving tone. 

“Oh, can it, Tucker. As if I didn’t just see the bazillion things in your basket. Wanna check out together or surprise me in the car?” He asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding his basket. He figured that they were simply going to skip school and sleep all day, which he was more than okay with.

Craig thought for a moment before deciding. In the car. You go through this line and I’ll do the next one, then we’ll just walk to the car together and surprise each other there.” He said, leaning in and kissing the blonde on the cheek before starting towards the next aisle.

“Right on, dude. Catch you in a few.” Kenny said, putting his shit on the conveyor belt and smiling at the cashier, who appeared to be giving him a weird look. He didn’t mind much, he got weird looks from pretty much everything he did and even how he looked.

Craig put his stuff gently on the belt, doing his best to give an awkward smile. “Can you, uh, put the stuff in the gift bag? Don’t want my boyfriend to see it before we get in the car,” He asked. The worker, some dude in his thirties, who would clearly rather be anywhere else gave a dramatic sigh and began the checkout process.

After the two were both done checking out, Kenny made a point of being first and thus proving tha Craig had gone way over the price limit, the two walked out to the car. “So, what’d you get me? Makeup?? Lipstick and a badass palette or something? Spill,” Kenny whined as they walked. Kenny had become pretty well known in high school for being able to pull off some gnarly makeup looks and was in no way ashamed of it. 

“Oh my god, can you not wait ten damn seconds? Your car is literally right fucking there, you fucking virgin,” He rolled his eyes as they approached the vehicle before climbing into the passengers seat and stuffing the bag with the camera down to his feet. He’d explain that later. For now, his focus was the cute little bag of orange treats.

Keny slammed his door shut and pulled his legs up to sit criss cross. “Okay, I want to go first,” He held his hands out for the bag, opening and closing them expectantly. “If you don’t show me what you got me in like ten seconds I’m pretty sure I’ll die,” He said with the most serious expression he could manage. This expression still had a stupid grin that shiwed his gapped teeth, but he was trying his best.

“Fine, drama queen, knock yourself out,” Craig responded, handing him the orange bag. The tissue paper was extremely half assed-ly thrown in, which prompted Kenny to laugh. He had grown to actually like the concept and he was really excited to see what he got. It was like christmas when you were a kid- though he had never really experienced a typical christmas as a child. 

He grinned, pulling out the fish plush first. “I love him, his name is now Craig Jr.” He declared, before continuing his rummaging. With each new thing he pulled out, he had a smartass reply. The candies were Craig fattening him up, the sunglasses were absolutely foolish and he was never going to take them off starting now, and the stickers and air fresheners that Craig had found were totally lame, but he loved them and stuck one on his face to prove it. The final gift was a little necklace. He honestly didn’t even know that Target sold jewelry. It wasn’t orange like everything else, it was just silver. A tiny little infinity sign. It hit a bit different than everything else, and he really wasn’t sure what to say other than “Pft, you’re so gay dude,” before promptly clipping it around his neck. Yeah, he wasn’t taking it off any time soon. 

“Okay, gaywad. My turn,” Craig said once the necklace was secured around Kenny’s neck, retrieving the bag from his lap. Kenny didn’t protest, he nodded and watched with a proud smile on his face. His things were definitely much more joking, but they were just as meaningful. An astronaut keychain with matching stickers, a little rainbow bracelet that was definitely just there so that Target could say that they support gay rights, and even a little candle that had was Craig’s alleged favorite scent- vanilla cupcakes. Last was a picture frame that looked like a beach- a long story of an inside joke that would take years to explain to an outsider, but the picture inside was one of the two of them. Craig looked up with an eyebrow raised. “Did you just- take it off of my Instagram? Dude, when did you even print it?” He asked, smiling at the photo. It was so goddamn cute. Definitely one of his favorites of the two of them together. 

“Psh, while ago. Come on, let’s get home. This was real fun, we should do it again soon,” He said, fixing himself in his seat and starting up the car. He put on his seatbelt and looked at Craig to do the same. “Wanna put on the music?”

“Yeehaw, dude,” Craig responded, tugging his seatbelt on despite hating seatbelts. He restarted the McCafferty playlist from before and then looked at Kenny as he pulled out of the parking lot. “After we wake up, we should go and find a good coffee shop. I was thinking maybe something small that we haven’t been to before,” he proposed, thus beginning some lame conversation that would keep them occupied for their long trip home. Almost five am and he only had seven days left to live. He was absolutely terrified but at least this week was going to be a good one.


End file.
